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Here we are with our first bulletin in which we discuss changes to Home well in advance, as promised in our recent discussions. It's an interesting one to start with as it coincides with the release of patch 1.21
We'll come back to 1.21 in a moment, but first let's detail what else will arrive on the 21st
General
Threads will have another relatively small influx of fun and varied clothing for those of you who like to mix and match, and you'll also find a few more hairstyles available to you in the wardrobe. And we can't resist listing them: Sleek Crop, Crop, Forward Spikes, Short Hair, Spiky Hair and last but not least, Shaggy Sleek.
Home Square
Some elements of Home Square have been updated behind the scenes and as a result you'll need to download the new version of the space. We are assured you will not notice the changes but for those of you interested the elements updated are Draughts, Chess and Helicopter Hit.
EA Sports Complex
The EA Sports complex is receiving an update to add the following:
Poker
- Leader Boards
The two screens attached to the roof support pillars in the space will now have leaderboard information for daily winners, and season leaders
- Ranking
The top 100 players for the season and for the day will be ranked and you can see if you have a ranking by looking at the bottom of the leader board
- Red Tournament Table
The middle table will now become the Red Tournament table
You will need to have a positive bankroll to play on this table which means having at least 1000 points in your bankroll
- Point Rewards for Winning
On the tables your rewards will vary based on the number of players and how you finish
Green payouts for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd
Red tables pays out more than Green
- Improved camera system (L1 to change, L2 to reset)
You now have 4 different views of the table you play on - standard, over head, table top view 1, table top view 2
You can look at the leader board to see how many point the daily and season winners have posted
Watch 1 of 3 video screens
View the Scoreboard slide show
Check the Ticker for updated event information
- Table placement
By moving the location of the tables we will be able to reduce the cross chatter between tables that occurs while texting
This change should also eliminate the annoying "video screen in my ear effect" that occurs on certain seats
- Music (R2 to change volume)
We have added a music track to the Poker game to make things a little more interesting
Volume control will also be added so you can toggle between 3 volume levels or turn it off completely (R2)
- Blind Timers
Now increment based on the number of people remaining at the table
- Blind Time on Status board
When you walk up to a table you now see how high the blind is and when it will double
Bug reporting
As a point of interest we are investigating ways of gathering bug reports from you in the future. Forum threads simply don't work for this as duplicate reports and general chat complicate and greatly increase the amount of work involved in simply finding the facts. In the meantime we will continue to look to our long term beta testers to report through our existing process. We hope to have something usable by all by the next patch.
Patch v1.21
And now onto v1.21 of the Home core client and the changes it brings. The major difference between ourselves and SCEA is that they will be releasing Picture Frames with 1.21. Whilst the moderation hurdles have been overcome our senior management (for better or worse!) are still reassessing their approach to user owned or generated content.
Until these concerns can be tackled we will hold back on releasing Picture Frames here in SCEE. However, our intention is to release this feature as soon as possible and we will let you know how things progress behind the scenes from time to time.
And now onto the lists of changes and fixes:
Improvements
• The chat log has been updated with a number of new enhancements:
- By clicking the left stick you can toggle the chat log between three modes: normal, expanded and minimised.
• It is also possible to switch the chat log directly into expanded mode by pressing up or down on the controller d-pad.
- While minimised the chat log is reduced to a small icon in the corner of the screen. This icon will still fade in and out to indicate whether new chat is being received.
- While expanded you can scroll through individual lines of text in the chat log. By pressing [CROSS] with a line highlighted they are able to open an options menu for the user who spoke.
- Lines of text are coloured in the chat log to reflect the colour choice of the user who typed them.
- Your friends will now have an icon placed beside their ID in the chat log.
• Emotes are now available when text communication has been disabled.
• It is possible to target things while sat on the floor.
• The process of moving between spaces has been streamlined which should make relocating a bit faster.
• The loading time for smaller images, such as thumbnails, posters and map chips, has been reduced.
Changes
• We have reduced loading times when using the virtual stores to browse and purchase items.
• We have changed the way furniture is saved in a Club house. This should stop furniture going missing if the player placing the furniture exits Home immediately after changing the layout.
• When you log in to Home, if there is a problem retrieving your commerce information then you will be returned to the welcome screen with an error message.
• When you attempt to telephone a friend that has voice chat disabled you will now see the warning in an alert message instead of a pop-up.
• If you choose not to download an update patch for Home and then attempt to log on you will be returned to the welcome screen with an appropriate error message.
• We’ve swapped the dark grey and dark blue pop-up colours for magenta and turquoise to make text easier to read in the chat log.
• Club ownership is now indicated by a crown icon instead of a star.
• We’ve slowed down the speed at which you can rotate furniture.
Bug fixes
• Fixed a bug that could cause items of furniture placed in the Club house to go missing (this is separate from the change to make saving the layout more robust).
• Fixed a problem that could cause Home rewards to be lost after a network error.
• Fixed a bug that would cause a crash when the user is signed out of the PSN while logging on to Home.
• Fixed a bug that would send users to the wrong place if they accepted an invitation to a Personal Space just as its owner relocated elsewhere.
• The option to make cross regional telephone calls from public spaces is no longer greyed out.
• Fixed a bug where spawning inside the trigger radius of certain mini-games would result in the user automatically joining them.
• Fixed a bug that would result in a “typing” chat bubble being displayed permanently if the user muted someone while they were typing.
• Changed Game Launching error messages so that line breaks show up correctly in them now.
• Fixed a bug that would cause alert messages to remain on screen after being disconnected.
• Fixed a bug that could cause a crash if the user was disconnected while making a purchase in Home.
• The furniture placement camera will now respect the control inversion settings specified in the Menu Pad.
• Adjusted the way characters get up from seating to make them less prone to popping in and out of seats that are close together.
• Fixed a bug that would result in characters standing on top of certain types of seating after standing.
• Fixed a bug that would cause certain parts of some animations to “stick” if the character stood up while playing them (for example if the user stood up while yawning, their mouth would be stuck open).
• Fixed a bug that would allow the character to run or slide while performing spot idle animations.
This difference between US and EU Home is really starting to do my tree in. I logged into US home last night to check out the new free personal space and cannot believe how much more they have. Shed loads of extra areas and cool SF/Tekken figurines (not that I'd buy them but the option would be nice)
On the official PS3 forums TedTheDog said that both the Uncharted space and Siren space where finished for Europe and going through testing stage, so i'd expect them fairly soon.
We are getting a new space this week, so it could be one of them.
People will also be pleased to know that the Namco Museum that they have in Japan is coming to Europe. Namco Bandi are localizing it themselves for europe and not sony but it's expected here by late July early August
We are getting a new space this week, so it could be one of them.
Don't be so sure....
Quote:
TedTheDog has also confirmed that it’s not the StageSet, Killzone, Ghostbusters, Uncharted or Siren spaces. [...] “There will be a new space, and you’ll be able to read all about it on the blog next week.”
16-05-2009, 12:03 AM
E. & O.E.
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